Influence of zircon addition on thermal shock resistance of ZTA for plasma reactors

The effect of CaO, MgO and SiO2 as a flux on the sinterability of zirconia toughened alumina(ZTA) used for plasma reactors was investigated and the effect of zircon addition on thermal shock resistance of ZTA with 15wt.% of ZrO2 was also investigated. The resultant data revealed that ZTA shows the best sinterability at the composition of 2wt.% of CaO, 4wt.% of MgO and 2wt.% of SiO2 and at the sintering temperature of 1350 degrees C. Thermal shock resistance ofZTA containing zircon was improved significantly. It is shown that ZTA containing 10wt.% of zircon shows better thermal shock resistance than others. This fact can be explained due to the low thermal expansion coefficient of zircon. It was concluded that zircon is an effective material to improve thermal shock resistance of alumina ceramics.